


and love you have given in your lifetime gives you back (i hope i remember to believe that)

by jublis



Series: heirloom [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, IROH IS THE ONLY PARENTAL FIGURE EVER, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Love, M/M, Nightmares, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Underage Drinking, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, and they all love him, copious references to angels in america, let these kids rest, once more zuko disassociating is not a healthy coping mechanism, suki is a fucking delight, suki: honestly zuko would it kill you to process a feeling, toph once burned down a police precinct to cope, who let aang get smashed, zuko accidentally went to a kegster with a bunch of servants, zuko: idk probably?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25196044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublis/pseuds/jublis
Summary: “Do you ever feel,” he hears himself asking, “like you’re standing right at the edge of something so much bigger than yourself, that if you take the wrong step, it’ll swallow you completely? That things are so broken the cracks will eat you up, bit by bit, and when the time comes, you’ll have moved nothing, changed nothing?” Zuko hears the wind swirl around them, and keeps going. “I feel like that. Like I’m both the sad person and the one trying to comfort the sad person. Like I’m standing in front of a three-faced mirror and staring into my face being reflected dozens and dozens of times, trying to see which one of us is going to make the right move. Right at the abyss of history.”Or, Zuko's coronation day. Featuring turtleducks, Uncle Iroh, the looming idea of Toph burning down a police precinct, and standing at the edge of history.
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: heirloom [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808977
Comments: 80
Kudos: 638





	and love you have given in your lifetime gives you back (i hope i remember to believe that)

**Author's Note:**

> hi y'all!! sooo i hope you like this one. a bit long-ish, but that's always fun!
> 
> title is from "window," by nana grizol.
> 
> see you at the end notes!

**i.**

On the morning of Zuko’s coronation, he wakes up alone. 

The only issue with that is he didn’t go to sleep alone, and as he rolls onto his side to look at the window, the sun is just barely streaming in. He has no idea what in the world either Sokka or Suki could be doing already up at this hour.

Well, _Suki_ has an excuse. For the past five weeks she’s been constantly in and out of training sessions with the Kyoshi Warriors, assigning shifts and organizing escorts for the guests, and going on patrols herself. When she manages to get out of the night shift, she throws herself onto Zuko’s bed and doesn’t move until morning, mouth half-open and already asleep by the time her head hits the mattress. Sokka had asked Zuko if maybe they should hold an intervention for her for overworking herself, and Zuko had just stared at him silently for two whole minutes.

“Sokka,” he’d said. “We’re having this conversation in my office at four in the morning.”

So, yeah. Sleep has never been a _major_ priority for Zuko, but ever since he woke up after the Agni Kai, he either spends his time running away from it or grabbing at whatever small periods of time he has free to nap, and his friends are no different. Toph, he found out, can sleep _anywhere_. Aang has mastered the art of falling asleep with his eyes open, and Katara can be found at multiple times of the day dozing off against walls in different hallways. He doesn’t even know when Sokka sleeps, because they’re always awake at the same time, and whenever Zuko wakes, Sokka is already up. But Zuko is pretty sure that last night was one of the rare ones in which all three of them settled into bed together, Suki’s arm reaching over Sokka to hold Zuko’s hand, Sokka hiding his face in Suki’s hair. 

Zuko never expected this. They’ve never actively talked about it, at least not yet, but one night turned into two, and Sokka started holding his hand when they sat together, and Suki would touch his arm to signal her presence before looping her arms around Zuko’s waist from behind, burying her face in his neck. And it’s—it’s nice. Really nice. The body is, at its best, only the longing for another body. Zuko is finally beginning to understand what that means.

He can feel the lightning scar in his chest pull at his skin as he moves, rough and stiff against his shirt. Zuko’s yet to take the time to actually look down at it carefully, but Katara has been pestering him to stop rubbing his hand over it, again and again, because _Tui and La, Zuko, do you know how easy it is for a scar to get infected?_

Yes, he does, thank you very much. Katara had flushed bright red when she realized what she’d just said, but she still glares at Zuko whenever she catches his hand lingering for too long near the injury. 

It’s strange. Where the scar on his face is all intent and precise, a perfect half-moon that covers his entire left side, from the bridge of his nose to his ear, this one is jagged and twisted, snaking up and down his chest like the roots of a tree. He can spend hours just lightly tracing its edges, from halfway down his stomach all the way up to the start of his neck. It’s an awful irony. His sister so much longed for control over everything, but even she couldn’t control the ways she marked him, in the end. He supposes they’re both at fault for that.

Azula was taken away four weeks ago. It was one of the first things Zuko saw to, after the ceasefire; he asked his assistants to research the best mental facilities in the Fire Nation and the colonies, somewhere trustworthy and accessible, that didn’t have any history of sweeping money under the rug or hurting its patients. He arranged the transportation and security and the night before she was set to go, he lingered at the door of the cell she was being held on until his legs were sore and the torches in the hall were all but gone. 

Zuko knows she’d known he was there. Her door had an opening on the middle, where guards put her food through, and Azula was simply too good to not hear his breathing, or feel the way fire curled around his fist as he breathed, in and out, trying to make himself lean down and say something.

Wisps of orange and red flames spilling from his mouth. The words lost somewhere between his chest and his throat. _Goodbye, Azula. Goodbye, little sister._

She could have said something. She could have said she wanted him to go away, or that she hated him, or laughed that freezing laugh of hers, mocking and derisive and unbearably sad. But all he could hear were small breaths coming from inside the cell, spaced out and practiced. A child’s lullaby. A soldier’s last stand before being sent away.

Even a month later, there’s still a hollowing in Zuko’s chest, a yearning so strong it almost feels like hunger, clawing at his insides with an animal’s desperation. The want for something to have turned out differently for them is almost enough to swallow him whole. There’s a painting of Azula in the second floor, just a few corners away from the room where he houses most of his meetings at, and Zuko passes by it every morning. Even painted in gold and red, she still looks cold. He stills sees her eyes in dreams, wide open and glassy with tears, screaming blue fire and a wild, helpless sobbing. 

He hasn’t sent her any letters yet. This is the only kindness he can afford her.

Zuko found Aang wandering the main hall that very night before Azula left, and for a full second, he believed he was seeing a ghost. After the battle with Ozai, Aang slept for a week, cocooned in blankets in a cot at the royal infirmary, completely dead to the world. It felt weird, in those early days, to take any action at all without running it through with his friend, but Zuko needed to get a move on as soon as possible. After eight days, the last thing he expected was for Aang to actually wake _up_.

“Hi, Zuko,” Aang had said, voice raspy with disuse. His grey eyes were wide and tired, and he leaned on his glider like he was about to fall to the floor. “What are you doing? It’s late.”

“I can say the same thing to you,” Zuko whispered, voice catching, reaching out to grasp Aang’s shoulders. “Welcome to the land of the living. Since when have you been awake?

“Uh. Since, like, ten minutes ago?” Aang scratched his head. “I got hungry and Katara looked really tired, so I didn’t want to wake her up. And I’m trying to find the kitchen but I keep running into walls.”

“Aang,” Zuko said. “Please tell me you didn’t just sneak out from the infirmary without warning Katara. Please tell me you didn’t do that.”

Aang only blinked, owlishly. “I— _didn’t_ do that?” 

The week after the battle was possibly one of the worst of his life, which is saying a lot. Zuko slept off a fever for the first two days, before pretty much running away from the healers and calling on as many meetings with advisors and councilmembers as he could possibly fit into his days; Suki had been climbing the walls, waiting for news of her imprisoned Kyoshi warriors to arrive, all the while butting heads with the guards she was now in charge of; Sokka walked the length of the entire palace multiple times a day, in spite of his injured leg, cracking jokes with anyone he could find and then, at night, stared listlessly at the ceiling for hours on end; Toph had been nowhere to be found, only appearing again six days later, covered from head to toe in mud. She still hasn’t breathed a word about what happened in that time.

And, of course, Katara. While Aang slept, she kept watch; Zuko had been able to catch small glimpses of her as he went by with his day, and every time it was the same. Katara was either pacing next to the window, or curled up in a chair next to Aang’s bed, or staring blankly at her own hands, still and silent. She didn’t leave the infirmary the entire time. Her face was full of half-healed cuts and bruises from fighting Azula, long hair scorched at the edges, and her fingers were cold when she checked over the healing of his scar. The servants started calling her 出没. A haunting. _She’s awake by dawn and still up way beyond midnight, pacing the room and muttering to herself. If I hadn’t stumbled into her the other day_ , one of them had whispered, _I’d think it was true. That she died and no one thought it wise to warn her._

To Zuko’s ears, it sounded cruel. But afterwards, when he mentioned it to Katara, she’d only smiled at him. “It’s only fair,” she’d said, and that was the end of it. 

But Aang had no way of knowing that. So Zuko just shook his head and led his friend to the kitchen, where he ate probably a few dozen apples with barely a pause to chew. Then, he walked Aang back to the infirmary, an amicable silence between them, and just as Zuko opened his mouth to bid him farewell, Aang had leveled him with a completely serious expression, brows furrowed in worry. “Zuko,” he had whispered. They were standing just in front of the open door, and any sound too loud would wake Katara, who was still curled up in her usual chair at the far end of the room. “What were you doing up?”

A smile. A shake of his head. It was too late for Zuko to feel himself inside his body anymore. “I was trying to say goodbye to her,” he’d said, “but I couldn’t.”

“The monks would say that means you’re bound to see each other again,” Aang said, eyes droopy but earnest. “Where there isn’t closure, there isn’t a place to say goodbye. You should know that.”

“The only thing I know is that my sister hates me,” Zuko said, “and I’m trying my best to love her back.”

  
  


Aang squeezed his arm. “You answered your own question.”

Zuko didn’t even realize he’d been asking for something, then, but he can hear it now. _Forgiveness_. For still trying to help Azula after all she did, and still trying to be there for her, and still loving her, irreversibly, impossibly. 

When he first became Crown Prince, the thing he wanted most on the day of his coronation was to see Azula’s face when the crown was placed on his head. Now, he won’t get to. 

The Sun finally dawns over the trees just across his window, light spilling into every corner of his room, and Zuko sits up on his bed and breathes. There’s casual clothes set aside on top of his drawer, plain dark pants and a red shirt he uses for sparring, along with his usual boots.

As is tradition, the crowning ceremony will take place when Agni’s light is at its highest in the sky. Until then, Zuko has work to do.

  
  


**ii.**

He hears his Uncle’s laughter before he even spots him, a loud and raspy sound that he knows as well as the beat of his own heart. And, formality be damned, Zuko takes off running towards it.

There’s a clamoring of startled guards behind him, and Suki barks orders to keep them in place. The newly arrived Kyoshi warriors are displayed in pairs of two in every corner of the palace entrance, looking at ease, but the guards reinstated after Azula’s brief stint as Fire Lord still eye Zuko warily, as if they can’t quite get a read on him. They’re probably not used to such a display of emotion from a member of the royal family; welcoming parties are formal and stoic affairs, and Zuko had needed Toph to harass several advisors for days to even allow him to be _outside_ to greet his uncle at all. He still needs to remind most of them that, despite everything they might think of him, he’s still the head of state, and his word is final. 

Uncle Iroh looks no different than he did the last time Zuko saw him. All the members of the White Lotus walk together, their white robes gleaming against the morning sun, with a sort of magnetic calm in their step. Uncle’s eyes wrinkle further at whatever the old earthbender—King Bumi—is saying to him, but the way his face lights up when he sees Zuko almost makes him start crying on the spot.

Zuko tackles him into a hug, throwing his arms around Uncle’s shoulder and burying his face in his neck. He smells like jasmine and mint and warmth, and his calloused hands come up to Zuko’s back immediately, squeezing him just as tight. Zuko wonders when in Agni’s name he grew taller than him.

“Nephew,” Uncle Iroh says, and Zuko can hear the smile in his voice. “I see you’ve already revamped the traditional welcoming ceremonies. They usually involve a more solemn silences and big words.” He pulls away just a little, holding Zuko by his shoulders. He lifts a hand and wipes his thumb under Zuko’s good eye, letting his touch linger there for a moment. “And a lot less tears,” he adds, chuckling.

Zuko rubs at his eye with his sleeve. “Shut up, Uncle,” he says. “Let me have this.”

“Oh, Zuko,” Uncle Iroh says. “I am so, so happy to see you, too. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Zuko says.

Uncle squeezes his shoulder once more. “Neither do you,” he says. “Neither do you.”

Zuko clears his throat, lifting his chin before he feels tempted to start crying again. He greets the other members of the White Lotus in a decidedly calmer manner, bowing to each of them in the way he was taught as a child, closed fist against open palm. Except for Master Piandao, Zuko isn’t acquainted with any of the others; Bumi seems to have already forgotten that he’d greeted Zuko in the first place, and had taken to staring intently at the butterfly circling his head, hissing at it from time to time. Pakku only looks at him gravely for a few moments, and then asks the whereabouts of his now-grandchildren. Well, he asks for the whereabouts of _Katara_ , but Zuko makes a point to emphasize Sokka’s name as he gives directions to the infirmary. Katara promised Sokka to try and speed up the healing of his leg in time for the coronation, and Sokka had elected to go in extra early to make sure it worked, the idiot. Katara was grumbling over breakfast, hair askew.

“He showed up at four in the morning,” she said. “Four! The _one_ time I manage to fall asleep in my bed, he pulls something like this. How did he know where my quarters were? I didn’t even know until last week, and they’re _my_ quarters.”

It was pretty stupid of him, but Zuko can only be relieved that Katara has finally moved into an actual bedroom, shedding the dirty blue clothes she spent eight consecutive days on and cutting the burnt edges of her hair with Suki’s help. Even Toph had looked quietly happy, smiling at her food and not making a big deal out of it. Even small steps are steps forward. 

Zuko waits to the side while his uncle greets all the advisors and war generals waiting for him. The weeding out of government officials has been a painstakingly long process, involving Toph being dubbed the new court lie detector, and self-elected head of the Fire Lord Threat Department, as she calls it. As disheartening as it was to find out that a of the people that had been guiding him for the first weeks of his reign were still loyal to Ozai, Zuko had been surprised to find out just how many people were in his corner. Mostly the youngest appointed officials, and a few sparse ones from the Colonies. People who had no particular stake in the war other than duty and loyalty—and people who had heard one too many stories about Ozai’s reign.

And, oddly enough, the servants. Zuko will be the first to admit that, as a child, he wasn’t much in the habit of paying attention to them, though he wasn’t as outright cruel as Azula was. He was well acquainted with a few of the healers and cooks, but by the time he became Fire Lord, most had already retired. And the workers were understandably wary of him—at least, until he accidentally invaded one of the drinking parties the youngest servants held in the lower quarters.

It was certainly an _experience_. He’d been wandering around the lower grounds, close to the kitchen, in one of the nights in which Suki was on patrol and Sokka was spending time with Katara, and the only reason it happened at all was because he was wearing his most casual clothes. He might have even been barefoot. Three servant girls sprinted down the hall, their hairs styled up as usual but with long skirts catching around their ankles, faces powdery and lips tinted red. Their laughter was a booming, bright thing, bouncing around the walls. And when they spotted him, their smiles only widened.

“Why, hello there,” one of them had said, with dark fringe that curled around her face, grabbing his arm. She never stopped walking, so Zuko had to keep going. “I haven’t seen _you_ around before.”

“Hush, Kaito, he’s probably new,” the other went, eyes darting around nervously. “The Fire Lord has been hiring a whole bunch of people, and firing old ones. I heard he’s even firing people from high up.”

She said _high up_ like one would whisper an angry spirit’s name. The third girl sniffed. “You’re scared of everything, Venka. I’m only glad Melik got his ass kicked to the curb. A stiff, I tell you. Worst head servant we’ve ever had.”

“Shut up, Kala.”

All the time, they hadn’t looked at him, but they did look flustered as he chuckled at their antics. Zuko probably could have wrenched his arm away, told them his name, and gone on with his night by himself, but as Kaito held onto him, he thought, _This might as well happen._

He doesn’t remember much of what happened, other than the sharp sting of alcohol down his throat, and the warm lights inside the common room between the separate quarters. Zuko doesn’t know if he did ever give up his name, but he played round after round of cards with other boys, who clapped him on the back and teased him for his potty mouth, and he caught Kaito looking at him more than once.

In the morning, he woke up on his bed next to Sokka, rumpled and sweaty. When he passed through the first floor on his way to a meeting, Kala was stationed next to the room, and the look she gave him was of pure horror. Then they both promptly burst out laughing. 

So, yeah. The servants are on his corner. Zuko takes pride in knowing Ozai would absolutely hate it.

Zuko looks at the sky, eyes tracing how much longer it will be before the Sun reaches its highest point. He feels better now that Uncle’s here, his presence solid and warm next to Zuko, but there’s still that familiar humming under his skin, a ringing rising up in his ears. There’s a significant moment between being here and not being here, and Zuko has toed the line many times before. The blink of an eye that is just too slow, or the word that takes too long for him to hear, and then, a vanishing. The world flickers on the edges of his vision, everything just a caricature of what it used to look like, childlike scrawls with obnoxiously bright colors, the sounds echoing and bouncing around his head before disappearing completely.

He usually can get on with his days when it happens, keeping his answers monosyllabic and smiling only a beat too late, barely enough to be noticeable. Sokka is the only one who can spot the moment when it happens, though Zuko has no idea what tips him off. He’ll drag Zuko away from whatever situation they find themselves in and sit him down by the turtleduck pond in the back garden, leaning forward to nudge Zuko’s face with his own. 

“Gran-Gran got like this, too, after our mother was gone,” Sokka says. “She says it’s like getting lost inside your own skin. Like the whole world can pass by and yet, you hold nothing.”

“Like the eye,” Zuko heard himself answer, once. “How so much of the world passes through the pupil. And yet. The pupil is an empty space.”

Zuko hates how familiar he’s become with Sokka’s sadness. When they first met, it seemed like such an impossible notion. 

He doesn’t like talking about it. But, just like Sokka, Uncle seems to be able to spot Zuko’s discomfort without even looking at him. He turns to the guards, addressing Suki specifically, asking if they could maybe get a few minutes alone to catch up. “It seems like you’ve forgotten,” Uncle says, when the guards look at him warily, “that despite my age, I can still hold my own in a fight. I would never let any harm come to my nephew. I would die first.”

_I would die first._

Zuko loves his uncle so much it hurts. 

The most alone they can get, with the crowning ceremony so close, is a stroll in the gardens with two Kyoshi warriors stationed by the door. Zuko feels itchy and uncomfortable inside his formal robes, the topknot he’d wrestled his short hair into pulling at his scalp, but he’s thankful to be feeling something. Uncle Iroh seems unperturbed as always, twiddling his thumbs idly as he walks and hums, wrinkled face turned upwards to drink up some of the sunlight. Zuko lets the silence between them simmer for a while, before opening his mouth. 

“You know, even when you weren’t here,” he says, “I felt your presence, sometimes. Like you were inside of me and there wasn’t any difference between us. Like I’d swallowed you.”

Uncle laughs. “Like you’d swallowed me,” he muses, eyes twinkling. “And why do you think that is, nephew?”

Zuko shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “Metaphors are more of your thing.”

Uncle Iroh suddenly halts to a stop, turning to face Zuko fully. He doesn’t look mad, or worried, but his face is earnest, almost painfully so. “I’ll tell you what it is,” he says. “You have the biggest heart of anyone I know, Zuko. You’ve kept it open no matter how many times it seemed like having a heart would be the thing that hurt you the most. And when you love someone enough, and they love you back, it is a simple exchange.” Uncle smiles, cradling Zuko’s face with his hand. “Loving means giving a little bit of yourself away. Being loved means that you are never alone, no matter where you go. It means that, for better or for worse, I am as much a part of you as you are of me.”

“Uncle,” Zuko says, voice breaking in the world. He closes his eyes tightly, tasting salt. 

“Zuko, you don’t have to say it,” Uncle says, still holding onto him. “I know.”

“Uncle,” Zuko repeats. “I love you.”

He moves before he can change his mind, and presses a kiss on his uncle’s forehead. When he draws back, Uncle looks stunned, something unreadable in his eyes. For a moment, panic flashes through Zuko, and he opens his mouth to apologize—he was out of line, he crossed his boundaries, he meant no disrespect, he’s so, _so sorry, Uncle_ —

And Uncle grabs him by the shoulders and presses Zuko against his chest like he is a little boy again, despite how much taller than him Zuko has grown, despite the way Zuko stiffens and holds his arms limply beside him, hesitating for just one moment too long, and one more, and one more. But Uncle doesn’t pull away. He keeps holding on until Zuko breathes again, and sags against him.

“In all my years,” Uncle murmurs, “I have never been more proud than I am right now, Zuko.”

“Not even when you reconquered Ba Sing Se?” Zuko jokes weakly, voice muffled.

Uncle squeezes him tightly. “Not even then.”

The Sun is warm on his skin. Before he even hears the calls from the guards, Zuko already knows the time has arrived.

  
  


**iii.**

Zuko was born in the dead of night. When he took his first breath, all the flames in the room went out. 

The Fire Sage places the crown on his head, and the Sun is so bright Zuko feels like he could drown in it. Here is the part where he doesn’t care if he’s half wrong when he says everything is made entirely of light. Here is the part where he thinks about all the steps that have led him to this very place. Here is the part where something swells on his chest, warm and sudden like the summer rain, washing away everything that doesn’t belong. He looks out into the crowd and thinks that maybe it’s pride. He finds the two faces he was looking for, and thinks that maybe it’s some other word.

Two vowels, two consonants. _Love. Hope._ In his head, the two have always been one and the same. 

Zuko takes a deep breath. Here is the part where he looks back at the boy, at that terrified, angry boy, with a clean face and wide eyes. Here is the part where he forgives him, at last, for trying and failing to be good. 

He once told Katara that firebenders rise with the Sun. As he stands, now, he feels like he can finally start living up to that.

**iv.**

The sun is setting and Zuko can’t move.

The pond looks still and peaceful under the falling gloom, gentle waves rippling its surface with the breeze blowing through the grass and trees. He can hear the soft twinkling of glass crystals coming from somewhere above him, swaying along with the branches. He doesn’t know who put them there. When he came back, the place had been barred for years. Ozai didn’t allow him nowhere near it.

Dimly, Zuko thinks of his mother. It’s probably what he should be thinking about, sitting in this place, but her absence has been mulled over and dulled by the passage of time. He doesn’t even remember what she smelled like; when he thinks of Ursa, all he can see are her scared eyes and trembling voice and clenched fists. Zuko is only grateful that whatever happened to her—wherever she ended up, at least she got away from his father.

He reaches his hand out, letting one of the turtleducks nibble at his empty fingers for a moment or two, before it paddles away. He’s still dressed in his formal robes, the sleeves rolled back to his elbows, and it’s a physical effort to not take down his hair and get that crown off his head. Not even in a metaphorical sense, either. He had no idea the thing was so uncomfortable. 

Water splashes on him, and Zuko lifts his head suddenly, blinking away his thoughts. Sokka is standing across the pond, holding a handful of pebbles, a wild grin dancing on his face. Suki is next to him in full Kyoshi Warrior gear, her painted eyebrows raising impressively high at the sight of Zuko.

“So this is where you ran off to?”, she asks. “ _Turtleducks_?”

Sokka elbows her, making a shushing sound. “Don’t insult the turtleducks,” he stage-whispers. “They’re his emotional support animals.”

Suki rolls her eyes, making a beeline for Zuko. She lowers herself to the ground slowly, careful not to wrinkle her clothes, and settles back with a sigh of relief. As Sokka slowly makes his way towards them, limping slightly, she glares at Zuko. “Now what do you think you’re doing, disappearing on us like that? If Sokka hadn’t mentioned this place, I would have called for a search party.”

Zuko wraps a piece of grass around his finger until he hears a snap, and then does it again. “I haven’t even been gone for that long,” he says. “You guys are just dramatic.”

Sokka flops down on the ground in front of Zuko with a gasp. “Dramatic, he says!” He pokes Zuko on the arm, repeatedly. “Did you _know_ ,” he says, “that a coronation day is statistically the best time for people to stage a coup?”

Zuko blinks at him. “No.”

Sokka turns to Suki, spreading his arms wide. “See? He doesn’t even know. It could be happening right now.”

Suki doesn’t look impressed. “Statistically, I could be about to drop dead right this minute,” she says. There’s a pause. Then she nods, as if making her point. “Didn’t happen. Pity. And we’re not being _dramatic_ , Zuko,” she adds, turning around to look at him. Though Suki looks most familiar with her makeup on, it's still a bit unnerving to see the white covering her skin, the red around her eyes. It looks like a wound that never bleeds. “We were worried. The coronation party starts in less than an hour, and we know how stressful today is being for you. We also know what happens when you _disappear_.”

Zuko chews on his lip, trying not to be ashamed. He doesn’t know how to feel about being known like this yet. His breakdowns are usually quiet, silent things—he slips away from his own mind, or he shakes so hard he feels like his bones are about to shatter, or he presses the palms of his hands against the skin of his forearms, until his chest isn’t the only thing burning anymore. Which is to say that when he leaves, something is about to explode. 

It’s happened twice since the ceasefire. The first time was on the morning when Azula was sent away to be treated at the Colonies, and one of the escorts had pulled Zuko to the side to tell him what his sister had wanted him to know. _If you come and say goodbye, I will burn down everything you think you have. If you come and say goodbye, there will be nothing left to say goodbye to._

He made it back to his quarters before he heard the screams, shrill and desperate and so loud that he felt like his chest was going to cave in, so loud that his mouth tasted like metal, so loud that when the voice was finally gone, the only thing that came out of his throat were wisps of flame.

It took Zuko longer than it should have to notice that he’d been the one screaming.

When Sokka found him, hours later, he still hadn’t moved. There were scorch marks everywhere around him, and Zuko’s hands were red and bubbling. _Firebenders don’t burn easily_ , Sokka had said quietly, as he led Zuko to the infirmary. Zuko had been too drained to give him anything but a twitch of the lips.

_Firebenders burn just as easily as anyone,_ he’d said. _We just don’t burn without intent._

The second time was after a nightmare. Zuko doesn’t like to think about it much, but somewhere in his head, there’s still a part of him that’s sitting in that dark room, rocking backwards and forwards, hands hovering in front of his face like he was about to wipe off his own tears. There’s still a part of him that doesn’t know what he would have done if Suki hadn’t woken up and wrenched his own arm away from him, the flame that hovered in his palm making her look like an apparition. 

“It’s not like that,” Zuko says, still keeping his head down. He swallows. “It’s _not_ , I promise. I’m fine.”

Sokka nudges Zuko’s shoulder with his head, trying to catch his eye. “Then why won’t you look at us?”

Zuko shrugs, still twisting the green stems in his hands. He doesn’t know what he feels like, but the idea of looking up seems as impossible to him as it would be for him to waterbend. It just won’t happen, no matter how hard he tries. “Do you ever feel,” he hears himself asking, “like you’re standing right at the edge of something so much bigger than yourself, that if you take the wrong step, it’ll swallow you completely? That things are so broken the cracks will eat you up, bit by bit, and when the time comes, you’ll have moved nothing, changed nothing?” Zuko hears the wind swirl around them, and keeps going. “I feel like that. Like I’m both the sad person and the one trying to comfort the sad person. Like I’m standing in front of a three-faced mirror and staring into my face being reflected dozens and dozens of times, trying to see which one of us is going to make the right move. Right at the abyss of history.”

“Zuko,” Sokka says. Zuko doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of hearing him say it. 

He lifts his head slowly, his eyes flitting over his partners. Sokka looks sad, but like he’s trying very hard not to show it; his hands keep stuttering in the air around his waist, reaching for a weapon that isn’t there, or inching closer and closer to Zuko’s fingers. Suki has a slight frown on her face, worrying at her lip like she does when she’s thinking hard. Her lipstick is smudged, but Zuko doesn’t think it’s the time to mention it. He displays his palm to Sokka, who holds it between both of his with almost childlike eagerness, their fingers intertwining immediately.

Suki pulls a strand of hair behind her ear. “You know, there was this elder in my village,” she says. “He was a storyteller. Said he’d travelled the whole word, seen everything, even fought in the war, though no one believed him. But there’s one thing he used to say that always stuck with me.” Suki takes the hand Sokka extends to her almost as an afterthought, and then keeps going. “He said that death usually has to take life away. That there was this—this _addiction_ to being alive. People live past hope. And if you can find hope anywhere, that’s the best you can do. It’s much not enough, but. It’s what we have to hold onto.”

One of the turtleducks chirps from the pond, a small sound in a silence that seems so large. The sun is almost completely gone by now, the sky melting from its purples and pinks into the night. Zuko can see a few stars already, scattered like tiny holes in a dark fabric. He squeezes Sokka’s fingers, mulling over Suki’s words.

“History is not always kind to its subjects,” Sokka says, softly. He looks almost entranced, staring at his and Zuko’s joined hands. “But I think it will be kind to you, Zuko.”

Zuko closes his eyes. He thinks about what he said to his Uncle earlier, and wishes the words came as easily to him now. They don’t.

But when he looks back at them, he knows they can see it on his face.

“Come on,” Suki says. “There’s a party that needs attending.”

**v.**

“Toph,” Zuko says. “Where the fuck did you find all that?”

Toph shrugs, the bottles on her arms making loud clanking noises as they move against each other. “The head cook owes me a favor or two. Or three.”

“No she doesn’t,” Suki says, looking straight ahead at the party she’s supposed to be watching over. “Toph just covered for me while I raided the kitchen. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Zuko raises an eyebrow at her. “When did you have time to raid the kitchen? I haven’t seen you move from there in hours.”

Suki gives him an unimpressed stare, and jabs her thumb in the direction of the other side of the entrance doors, where two Kyoshi warriors are chatting lightly as they keep an eye on stuff. Zuko can only recognize Ty Lee by the braid that starts high on her head, tumbling down her waist. “From a distance, we all look the same,” she says. “Perks of the job.”

Toph nods, solemn. “I’ll drink to that,” she says, tilting her head back to one of the tables at the far end of the ball room. “As soon as those shitheads get a move on so we can _leave_. I swear, Aang must have eaten a thousand caramel-apple surprises by now, and Katara’s letting him. You _know_ how he gets with sugar.”

Zuko crosses his arms, trying to look inconspicuous, which is hard when he is, you know. The actual Fire Lord, trying to keep his head low as he plans the escape from his own coronation party. It’s one of the few times in his life he has ever been grateful for looking young, because most people don’t even spare him a second glance, assuming he’s the son of some noble or another, hiding out from the party with his friends. Instead, he’s the head of state.

But Uncle Iroh seems to be keeping most guests busy, moving around the room with practiced ease, starting each conversation with a smile and ending it with booming laughter, bowing to other Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom nobles, or clasping the arms of Water Tribe guests. Zuko, on the other hand, had barely managed to stammer his way through his first five conversations before Toph grabbed his arm and dragged him away to the entrance, grumbling about his heartbeat. Which was when he noticed the fact that on her other arm, she was carrying several glass bottles filled with rich gold liquid, which were decidedly _not_ any kind of juice.

Uncle Iroh had smiled at him, and waved a little in goodbye. Even though Zuko’s the one in charge, his Uncle was dismissing him for the night. 

He can see Aang pretty much running laps around the dessert table, while Katara watches him with an exasperated look on her face. Sokka stands next to her, throwing grapes into the air and trying to catch them with his mouth and failing miserably. They don’t look like they’re moving anytime soon, and when Zuko says so, Suki crosses her arms over her chest.

“Give me a minute,” she says. Then her eyebrows quirk up, drawing together in what is halfway to a frown, lips downturned, and she lifts her chin, changing her weight from one leg to another.

“What is she doing?” Toph asks. “Blind girl here. What is Suki doing?”

Zuko shudders. “Fuck,” he says. “It’s the neutral face of displeasure.” 

It works like a charm. After a whopping ten seconds of Suki staring at Sokka, he lifts his head suddenly, as if he’d heard a sound. He meets Suki’s eye and visibly pales, nudging Katara and barking something at Aang. In less than a minute, they’re standing in front of the rest of them and ready to leave. Sokka gives Suki the stink eye. “You promised to only ever use that face when it was about something serious,” he grumbles. “You just played with my emotions like a fucking _fiddle_.”

Suki kisses his cheek. “It was for the greater good,” she says, nodding her head at the bottles in Toph’s arms. Sokka brightens like he’s just seen a miracle happen.

Aang squints at them. “Is that alcohol?” he asks. “It looks like alcohol. Are you guys planning to get drunk?”

“Uh,” Katara says. “What’s the drinking age again?”

“Eighteen,” Zuko answers. “If you’re looking for a legal loophole, there isn’t any.”

Katara sighs, smoothing the skirt of her dress—a dark blue parka that falls all the way to her ankles, swaying just above her feet like a stream of water. “Story of my life,” she says. “I’m in. Where are we going?”

“Toph says she knows a place,” Suki says, taking off her hairpiece. “And I’m off duty for the night, official as of now.”

Toph smiles, all sharp edges and teeth. “Follow me,” she says, and with a flourish, she takes off.

Following Toph consists in a lot of almost running into walls, and taking sharp turns that shouldn’t exist, and once or twice walking all the way down a hall just to have to walk back, because she’d lost track of where she was going. The rest of the palace seems muted after the loudness of the ball room, and the halls are nearly deserted, with most of the servants being stationed to take care of the party. Their small group follows Toph down into the lower quarters, a path he vaguely remembers from that night all those months ago. Her steps don’t falter even as they pass by one of the seamstress’ assistants, rushing out of the servants quarters with a wild look on her face. Zuko acknowledges Kaito with a small nod of his head, and she gives a pointed look at the bottles Toph is carrying, mouthing _lucky_ before scurrying off.

They stop suddenly, in the middle of the hall. Toph tilts her head, like she’s listening to something, places her hand over one of the tiles on the wall, and pushes. It gives out easily under her touch, and as the tile slowly slides back into place, the edges of a door appear around the stone. Toph pushes again, and it opens inwards, like a square of darkness in the middle of the hall.

“No fucking way,” Sokka says. “No fucking way. Is that a secret passageway? Holy shit. I feel faint. Zuko, hold me.”

Zuko pats Sokka’s shoulder, absently. “I remember this,” he says. “It runs through every floor in the palace. One of the entrances was close to my room, and I used it to sneak into the courtyard without running into anyone. I think the servants use it to move quickly without being seen.”

Sokka pouts. “No secret passageway,” he says. “Only a _boring_ passageway. I can never win.”

“Cry me a river”, Katara says.

Toph starts down the stairs first, Zuko following close behind. There aren’t any torches to light, so he keeps a steady flame burning at the center of his palm, raised high to illuminate the path for everyone behind him. The path seems to go on for longer than he remembers, winding down and down until he’s pretty sure they’re somewhere below the palace itself. He knows there’s a bunker somewhere on grounds, but he’s never been inside it himself.

“I found this on my first week here,” Toph explains, her voice bouncing around the walls. “There are tunnels leading out from here to every strategic point in the Fire Nation. They all spread out from the same place, though so there’s this huge circle that’s completely empty. It’s cozy.”

“So that’s what you were doing?” Katara asks, somewhere behind Sokka. “You were gone for six days, and no one could find you. Were you just exploring the tunnels?”

“Among other things.”

The narrow staircase opens into a wide stone floor, the ceiling so high Zuko can’t see the end of it. He shoots up a burst of fire from his fist, and incredibly enough, it strikes a torch hanging somewhere just above them. He goes around the circle, lighting the rest until the whole room is bathed in a soft, warm light.

“What other things?” Aang asks, flopping down on the ground. The edges of his traditional Air Nomad attire floats around him for a moment before he presses down on it, forcing them to sit still.

Toph sets the bottles down. “I burned down a police precinct,” she answers. “Pretty sure.”

“ _What_?” Aang screeches, eyes wide. “Why?”

“You have your coping mechanisms, Twinkle Toes,” Toph says, opening the lid of the first bottle with a satisfying pop. She takes a long sip, barely grimacing, before setting it down again. “I have mine.”

Zuko sits on the damp ground, cross legged. Sokka lays down next to him, placing his head on Zuko’s lap and making grabby hands at one of the bottles, which Suki takes a swig of before handing it to him. “If you let a single drop fall on my clothes, you’ll wake up with a sword shoved up your nose,” Zuko says, without any heat.

Sokka gulps down quickly, his whole body wincing at the taste. When he recovers, he smiles dopely at Zuko. “If I wake up, that means you did it wrong.”

Suki sighs, leaning her head on her hands. “You guys are so cute when you threaten each other with death,” she says. “Please, keep going.”

“Please, do not,” Katara says. “I think it’s gross.” Her face is flushed in the warmth of the room, and she barely flinches when she gulps down her drink. The three bottles are open now, and Zuko can see that none of them will last too long. He’s next, and the alcohol settles warmly on his chest, like a small kindling. 

The aftertaste, though is anything but pleasing. “ _Agni_ ,” Zuko says, grimacing. “Suki, where did you find this? It tastes like cleaning alcohol.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Suki deadpans. “Maybe because it was under a sign that said, _cleaning materials, do not drink._ Toph told me where to find them.” She pauses. “Okay, maybe—”

“Not your best argument, dude,” Toph agrees, reaching to pat Suki on the shoulder.

“I really don’t think it’s that bad,” Aang says, downing another worryingly large gulp of the stuff. “It’s an acquired taste. Like fireflakes! What do you think, Sokka?”

“I think,” Sokka says, words slow, and Zuko will never let him live down the fact that he’s a total lightweight, “I think!” he repeats, louder, “that Zuko should smile more. I like it when he smiles.”

Zuko feels warm to the very tips of his fingers. “I like it when you smile, too,” he says, quietly.

Aang lets out a screech of joy at his words, and though Toph groans, Zuko can see her smiling. Suki throws herself on top of he and Sokka both, and they end up a mess of tangled limbs, no telling where one ends and the other begins. Katara laughs so loudly that alcohol comes out of her nose.

Zuko closes his eyes and smiles, the swelling on his chest threatening to overtake everything. He lets it.

The great work begins. 

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii :D so. yeah. thinking about Them
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are appreciated! if you want to yell at me, you can do that on twitter @bornfrombeauty !! see y'all soon!


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